Dude, Where The Hell Is The Car?
by fairytalemanipulator
Summary: “What do you mean, you LOST the CAR?” Brotherly banter oneshot. Dean’s angry at Sam. I wonder why. Set in a previous season.


**Title: Dude, Where The Hell Is The Car?**

**Author: fairytalemanipulator**

**Summary: "What do you mean, you LOST the CAR?" Brotherly banter. Dean's angry at Sam. I wonder why.**

**Warnings: Sorry to anyone I offend with using the phrase "mentally handicapped", I promise I'm not trying to make fun of disabilities or anything, Dean's language is key to the storyline! I promise! **

**This is set sometime before the Sam/Dean drama, anytime before that, and I throw in a couple of earlier-season references, see if you can catch them.**

**xoxo I love you guys and hope you enjoy this oneshot! Cheers!**

"Dean, wake up."

"Ungghhhhh."

"Dean, wake UP."

"Garghhhhhh…"

"Someone keyed the Impala."

Dean shot up. So fast, in fact, he collided heads with Sam.

Dean ignored his own pain and instead felt a sting in his heart for his beloved car as he dashed outside, shirtless and in silky heart covered boxers, to inspect his beloved baby. Amid howls of Sam's pain from inside the motel room, he dashed around the car, looking for even a speck, a line, a nick, on the restored Chevy.

There was none.

"I was just trying to get you out of bed, you imbecile!" Sam howled from the doorway, gigantic hand rubbing his now-throbbing head. "If I had known that would light a colossal fire under your ass I would've stepped back!"

Dean growled, making a jogging couple on the sidewalk squeal and run faster. He paced back to the hotel room, slamming the door, eliciting another wail from Sam.

"What, dear brother, was so urgent that it couldn't wait for an hour?"

"We have a new case, Bobby just called."

"Sweet Jesus, you couldn't have just said that? It would've got me out of bed without a huge knot on my forehead. You're such a bitch."

"Yeah well at least I'm not a jerk."

"_At least I'm not a jerk._"

"How old are you, five? Stop mocking me."

"_Blah blah blah. I'm Sam, and I'm a little bitch. I wear panties._"

"I don't sound like that."

"But you wear panties."

Dean guffawed at his own joke, slamming the bathroom door and turning on the shower to tune out Sam's huffs and puffs.

Oh, today would be a good day.

------------

_Five hours later_

"Where in the name of all that is holy are we?" Dean stretched his arms, bouncing on the hotel bed, albeit cautiously. _Never know what's going to come out of these nasty mattresses…_

"Nowhere, Indiana."

"And that's literally the name of the town?"

"No, Dean, I just made it up to be clever."

"I can't tell sarcasm with you. Ever."

"Imbecile."

"You suck." Dean yawned, thoroughly bored by their situation. From Bobby's phone call, it seemed like a simple case of a haunting that just needed a good salt and burn.

"So now that we're stuck in a crappy motel in another crappy town, what's next on the crappy agenda, Sammy?"

"Police station is down the street, you go talk to the cops and I'll go to the library. I need the car, it's across town."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Walk, sunshine. It's good for you."

"Hell no. The town's actually pretty big."

"Are you kidding me? Fine, but if there is one scratch on my baby it's coming out of your back."

"Oh I'm so scared." Sam rolled his eyes, causing Dean to deepen his menacing scowl.

As Sam ever so cautiously slipped into the driver's seat, he adjusted the rearview mirror to catch an eyeful of scowling Dean.

_If that moron puts one nick in that beautiful paint job, someone's gonna get hurt_. Dean turned and walked in the opposite direction, still muttering to himself, causing a woman with a child to hurriedly cross the street. Naturally, he didn't notice.

Approaching the police station, he peeked in the doors to see—what else—an adorable young woman at the station up front. "Luck is on my side today," Dean whispered, giving a thumbs-up to the sky. "After all, how much damage can Sam actually do to that car?"

And with that ominous statement, Dean ran his hands through his hair, put on a cat-eating grin, and went to charm his way into some classified police records.

---

"Dude, where are you?" Dean left another voicemail on Sam's phone, worriedly wearing a hole in the cheap motel room carpet. It had been a few hours and Sam still hadn't called him back; _how much research did the kid really have to do?_ Dean was beginning to panic as he hung up the phone yet again, flipping it shut and letting it bounce off the stained bedcovers. Without a car, he would have to walk to the library to trace his brother down, and that was not appealing to Dean. He ran through the possibilities in his head: _poltergeist, demon, possession…oh, he better not have gotten into a car accident…_

Just as he was arriving at more gruesome conclusions, his phone rang and Dean pounced on it eagerly.

"Dude, where have you been?"

"_Uh, I'm almost back, just give me a few minutes, okay?"_ Dean didn't miss the heightened tension in his younger brother's voice, it was the same tone he'd had when he was fifteen and walked in on Dean and his girl of the night doing…well, you know.

"What did you do?"  
_"Uh, what? What? I didn't do anything…"_

"Don't be a liar _and_ a bitch, tell me now and maybe I won't kick your ass into the next shitty county,"

"_Almost at the door, see you in a few."_

As soon as Dean had hung up the phone, he heard Sam fiddling with the door, taking an unnaturally long time.

What he hadn't heard was the roar of his baby's engine purring up to the parking space.

Frustrated, Dean yanked open the door, eliciting an "ow" from Sam as his hand with the key jammed in the lock was pulled inconsiderately into the room. As he tumbled forward awkwardly, Dean could clearly make out the sheen of sweat coating his brother's body.

"What. Did. You do."

"Okay dude," Sam had that whiney tone in his voice. "Before I say anything, I want you to remember that you're my brother and I love you, okay?" Switched to pleading. "Please?"

"What the hell did you do that will make me want to un-brother you?!"

Sam cleared his throat, eyeing the partially cracked window next to the door as a second possible route of escape. "Uh, I, uh…"

"Spit it out, jackass!" Dean's eyebrows made one straight line parallel to his mouth, lips thinly stretched over snarling teeth.

"I lost the car."

Silence.

"You what?"

"I lost the car."

"Are…"

"I'm so sorry, Dean, I parked it and when I came back it wasn't—"

"What do you mean, you LOST the CAR?"

"It's…I didn't mean to, it was…I came back out and it just wasn't there! I looked everywhere for it, I asked about a million people—"

Here he was interrupted by a raised hand from Dean, signaling him to stop. Sam's voice slowly petered out, an incoherent mumble of "I didn't mean to"s and "I swear I was being careful"s. Sam felt like a ten year old again. And would probably be pummeled like one, too, if Dean's heavy, erratic breathing was any indication.

Dean was looking down at the floor, processing his thoughts. His hand was still raised, the ring on his finger glinting menacingly. Sam gulped, much too loud, startling the silence in the room.

"So." Dean looked up, and Sam was faced by what he was positive was a demon that had inhabited his brother's body. "You lost. The car."

"Dean, I—"

"HOW THE HELL DO YOU LOSE A CAR? IT'S A CAR! IT'S THERE! IT'S BIG! IT'S HUGE!"

"Maybe someone stole it!"

"MAYBE YOU FORGOT TO LOCK IT AND INVITED SOMEONE TO STEAL IT WITH YOUR MORONIC NATURE!"

"I locked it, dude! I did!" Sam was practically on his knees groveling. "You can hit me. I deserve it." Sam closed his eyes and turned his face to the side, waiting. He was surprised to hear his brother's frantic footsteps headed in the other direction.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't—" Dean turned and paced back slowly towards his brother again. "I have no idea. I have NO idea. I can't—I should—it's—"

And all of a sudden, Dean felt tears well up in his eyes. "My poor baby…" He whispered, not noticing Sam's confusion at his sudden change of mood. "How could you have done this to her?"

Dean stared accusingly at Sam from his position, sinking onto the bed and apparently losing control over his legs in his intense heartache.

"I…uh, Dean, I think we should go look for it."

"Her. Not it."

"Erm…" Had it been any other day, and anyone else's fault, Sam would have given Dean hell for that last comment. However, he had no idea how stable his brother's emotions were at this time. "Right, her. We should go look for…her."

Dean was up and halfway out the door before he turned around and collided into Sam, who had been tailing him closely. The offender in question backed away quickly from his older brother's murderous gaze.

"I. Am. NEVER. Letting you drive the car again. ANYWHERE. Even if I'm dying and you need to go get help, and I'm losing a quart of blood a minute, you get to friggin' WALK, do you hear me?"

Sam let out a terrified squeak in acknowledgement.

"Okay then. Guess where we get to go? Oh yeah, we get to walk to the library and figure out where she went. Whose fault is it that we have to_ walk_ all the way there, Sammy?" Dean's voice reached a characteristically high note.

"Mine." Sam's voice reached a characteristically ashamed note.

"Yeah, it's your fault." Dean took a deep breath in through his nose, the cool evening air not doing a damn thing to calm him down. "I hate you right now. Don't talk to me."

So Sam trailed Dean for miles in silence.

---

By the time they got to the library parking lot, the sun was beginning to set and the brothers were dripping with sweat. The town was ridiculously large for a place named Nowhere. Dean's boots had the strength to withstand wear and tear, which was less than could be said about Sam's sneakers which looked like, as Dean snidely pointed out more than halfway through their walk, something he jacked off of a homeless guy's shopping cart.

"Show me where you parked."

Still not sure he was allowed to talk, Sam cleared his throat. He pointed to an empty spot right near the front of the building, a prime parking location. "I looked all around this parking lot, and the next one. I know I locked it…"

"So that means someone stole it."

"Not necessarily, maybe someone borrowed it."

"Why the hell would someone borrow a car? You mean steal?"

"No I mean borrow, like, what if there was an emergency and—"

"So someone just carries around a crowbar with them and when an emergency pops up they break into the nearest car with promises to return it?"

"Yeah, maybe!"

"How did you get into college? Did you sleep with the dean?"

Silence.

"Maybe you parked it somewhere else. Are you sure that's where you parked it?"

"Yeah I'm sure. You can go closer, you know. Unless maybe the spot is a black hole and the car got sucked into it."

"Considering your idiotic tendencies and our luck in general, don't jinx us, asshole. And keep your sarcastic comments to yourself unless _you_ want to be shot in the chest with rock salt."

"Sorry."

"Are you sure you parked it there? Maybe you parked it on the other side."

"Other side is staff only, I already looked."

"If you already looked for it then why are we here?"

"Because you made us walk here."

"I am so tempted to kick your ass right here, like a straight up movie fight scene."

"What?! I'm being serious! You said that we should come here to look for it. Maybe we should call the cops."

"Oh yeah, that's a great idea, considering I was just at the police station asking to look at criminal files. That'll be really inconspicuous. If you say one more thing I might have to knock a few teeth out and make your hillbilly face mismatch your college asshole degree."

"That doesn't make sense."

"That's it."

Dean grabbed Sam around the neck, pushing him down with sheer weight and surprise. With a yelp, Sam was down on the grass across the street from the now-infamous parking spot.

"My shirt! Come on, Dean, I just washed this!"

"DOES IT LOOK LIKE I CARE?" Spittle flew out of Dean's mouth, landing directly in Sam's eyes, causing him more discomfort.

"Okay, okay, look! How—how about we go over there and check to see if there's anything useful there, maybe whoever took the car dropped something. And if we don't find anything, we can go inside the library before they close and ask if they saw anything out front." Sam stayed calm, using logic to keep his brother from breaking his face.

Dean hesitated at this plausible suggestion, yearning to take out rage on his brother's geeky face. All of a sudden he let go of Sam's shirt, dropping him down in the grass once again. Sam heaved a sigh of relief and got up, brushing himself off, and following his brother to the parking spot.

He should have sensed that something was wrong when Dean went stone-still, looking at something that Sam couldn't see in the shifting light.

Sam was rambling on about some news story where a car was supposedly stolen from a convenience store and ended up in the exact same place about three hours later with just a few more miles on the odometer. His prattling ended when he sensed his brother's rising and impending explosion of anger from the stillness of the air around him.

"What…what is it, Dean?"

Nothing.

"Dean?"

The Winchester in question raised a shaking, outraged finger, pointing at a half-faded paint mark in the middle of the spot and the corresponding broken sign hanging by one strand of metal from the signpost in front of it.

Sam squinted in the fading light, trying to make out what it was. Just then, the streetlights went on. And with a feeling of doom, Sam saw the symbol before Dean's whispering voice spoke in constrained rage.

"You parked…in a handicapped spot."

Sam's mouth opened and closed. "I…"

"You parked. In a handicapped spot. And got the car towed."

"It…it would seem that way."

The brothers read the crooked sign in front of the spot in silence. _Handicapped parking only, violators will be towed._

"Well…well…the—the sign was broken, I couldn't have seen it…"

Not even the crickets chirped for a minute. Then Dean turned to Sam and exploded.

"YOU PARKED IN A HANDICAPPED SPOT? WHAT ARE YOU, SIXTEEN AND DRIVING YOUR DADDY'S CAR FOR THE FIRST TIME? IT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BUILDING, OF COURSE IT'S A HANDICAPPED SPOT! WHAT DID YOU THINK, BECAUSE YOU ARE, APPARENTLY, MENTALLY HANDICAPPED, IT WOULD TOTALLY MEAN THE SAME THING?!?!"

"I didn't see it, dude! Look, it's so faded! And on the bright side, at least now we know where it is…"

"IT'S IN AN IMPOUND LOT, AND IT'LL COST WHAT, THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS IN CASH TO GET IT OUT? MAYBE I'LL HAVE THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS IN CASH WHEN I PIMP YOU OUT TO PAY FOR THIS!"

"Anything short of that, Dean, I swear I'll make it up to you…"

"MY POOR BABY IS ROTTING IN AN IMPOUND LOT BECAUSE OF YOUR **STUPIDITY**!" An animal howled in the distance, and Sam could see the people in the library clustered at the window watching with avid interest. "WHEN WE GET THE CAR BACK I'M GOING TO SHOVE YOU IN TRUNK WITH MOLDY BURGERS AND DIRTY CLOTHES AND MAKE YOU RIDE BACK THERE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, DO YOU HEAR ME?"

"Yeah…yeah, I hear you…" Sam believed him, too. "Maybe we should…go to the impound lot, before it closes?"

"OH, SO NOW YOU HAVE IDEAS, DO YOU? MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE YOU PARKED IN THE HANDICAPPED SPOT! I'LL MAKE YOU HANDICAPPED SO YOU'LL HAVE TO PARK IN THAT SPOT, YOU JUST WAIT!"

----

Dean blustered and shouted all the way to the impound lot. After recovering the car with _"A GOD DAMN HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY I COULD HAVE USED FOR STRIPPERS, POKER, OR MCDONALDS!" _they headed back to the motel.

In a stony silence, Dean cut the engine in front of their room in their designated parking spot.

"You see, Sam? This is a parking spot where we won't get towed."

"Again, dude, I'm sorry. I'll pay you back."

"Oh, you certainly will," Dean laughed evilly, sounding quite like a terrible demon hell bent on earthly destruction. "_I'll _ pay _you_ back for this too."

Sam sighed. This was gonna be bad. After all, when you take away the car, a chick, or food from Dean, that's when you're in trouble.

"I don't even think I have to ask if I get to drive the car again."

"Pretty sure your college brain can figure that one out."

----


End file.
